In The Pilot's Seat
by Alicamel
Summary: Ganya's turn, and how does he deal with the tragedy? Companion piece to 'And Still' and 'Bones and Moonbeams.' That now makes 4 stories I written about this event. Time to stop. Especailly if you include the simillarly themed Buffy fics . .


SUMMARY: Ganya watches Susan grow up and attempts to deal.  
  
A challenge following 'Bones and Moonbeams,' also from Adi. All in the same night. I think both me and my muse now need sleep!  
  
Yeurch. I really don't like this one, but as you asked for it . . . I'm just not sure it says what I want it to say. But I tried, see? Do I get a gold star for effort?  
  
I'm not sure what Susan's father's name it, but Andrei sprung out of my sub- consious for a good reason, so, whatever. *shrugs*  
  
Well, here you go Adi. Enjoy.  
  
  
  
In The Pilot's Seat.  
  
*********************  
  
Through the glass-that-wasn't-glass of the viewport Ganya Ivanov watched the distant and unknown stars move past.  
  
In Earthforce military there were always stages of doing things. Ensign to Lieutenant to Commander to Captain. An endless maze of hierarchies to work through to approve anything. And training, of course, took place in stages.  
  
At first he'd been in a training school in St. Petersburg. Travelling home every weekend, though it was usually every other weekend, as he wasn't always up to facing everything at home. They worked through the basics, the rules and regulations, how to act, how to behave, how to walk and talk and swear like an old man.  
  
Everything laid out, in nice, easy to follow instructions, patterns, stages. He liked being at the training camp, like knowing how to act in every situation, liked know what was going to happen each day. No confusion, no doubts, no one he could spend forever trying to reach and never even scratch the surface.  
  
And he would go home and eat dinner and leave the table as quick as he could. 'I'm meeting the guys. I've got an assignment to finish. I'll see you later, nice to see you, you look well,' all the lies he learnt to spout to them to escape the inescapable vacuum.  
  
Next stage was further away, the middle of North American (in what had once been Illinois, but had long since be absorbed into various neighbouring states.) More rules, more regulations, more preparation for every possible outcome.  
  
He liked that. Knowing he knew every possible outcome and had been told what to do in each situation. No room for doubts, for 'unforeseen complications', for situations where he was useless, standing to one side, unable to offer comfort or assistance or a single damned thing.  
  
He only returned home every few months, though he wrote regularly. The same thing he imagined them all writing. 'Enjoying the training, though it is hard work sometimes. Hope I can be home soon. Much love.'  
  
He wondered who read them, and carefully addressed in to both 'Andrei and Susan.' It was for both of them really, though Susan once murmured that only she read them, sort of, and then threw them away. That threw him. He wasn't expecting that.  
  
As a pilot the next stage was to get out of the simulation and into the real thing. Flying from ESS 1, (which had orbited the Earth since 2139,) to the moon and back. Landing, taking off, refuelling, checking for problems. Combat exercises. Flying manoeuvres. Manuals he could memorise from cover to cover, so he would never be thrown by the unexpected again.  
  
He was hardly ever home now, and he wondered if they even noticed. When he did go home, he noticed the angular, sharp bones sticking out of his sisters body, as if ready to pierce the skin. He noticed the bags beneath her eyes, the long drawn out pauses, the scars along her arms and legs and stomach, some healing, fading, some new, red and angry, standing out like a fuel warning light against the almost transparent skin that was like paper to the touch.  
  
He saw his father moving from room to room like a ghost, the curtains drawn against the sun he's flown so close too, while laughing with his flight partner over the comm. The lights out, the oven cold. Neither one eating, or talking or living at all.  
  
He took Susan back to the training camp at St. Petersburg, bribed the old officer he'd impressed, years ago now, into letting her in the flight simulator.  
  
She loved it.  
  
He thought, this is better than therapy. She just needs stability, an aim, something other than memories. Something she can control, rather than trying to cope with what she couldn't.  
  
He wrote to Susan now, Susanna, my little pilot. She wrote back, sometimes, and the darkness seemed to lift as the weeks and months and years went on. He visited less often, with the war breaking out, thought they spoke and he watched her grow, flesh out again, though she would always be slender and the scars would not all completely heal.  
  
She was in control again, just like him. Clamp down on emotions, don't get involved in anything you can't control. Control, control, control. She came to see him, all seventeen years of age, the middle of a war, and said she was joining up, and though he tried to talk her out of it, he knew it was his fault, and in a way was proud.  
  
And then he climbed into his ship, and ran the preliminary checks he always ran, said the brief prayer he always said and took off, following instructions he always followed, not worried that he didn't know exactly what was to come, because he was in control of every situation. 


End file.
